70 Springs cyclists riding Courage Classic this weekend
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- Created on Saturday, 23 July 2011 00:45
- Written by Dena Rosenberry
By Angie Jackson, The Gazette
Although he was an avid mountain biker, Brad Barnes struggled up Vail Pass during his first Courage Classic bike tour in 2000.
He’d never ridden more than 20 miles straight and the three-day, 157-mile ride felt like eternity.
Now, returning for his 12th Courage Classic benefiting Children’s Hospital Colorado in Denver, Barnes is hooked on cycling. Riding with his colleagues as part of the Air Academy Federal Credit Union’s team has become tradition. And these days, the ride is more than a physical challenge.
In 2005, Barnes’ wife’s sister’s son Alex was stillborn and the Courage Classic transformed from a fun ride to therapeutic.
“It refocused me about what the ride is about,” said Barnes, who rides with pictures of Alex on his jersey.
Barnes is among 70 Colorado Springs cyclists participating in the 22nd annual Courage Classic this year. The trip begins Saturday in Leadville and takes riders throughout Summit County, offering challenging climbs relieved by views of pastoral meadows, rugged mountain passes and wide-open skies.
In 21 rides, the event has raised $26 million for the Children’s Fund, which provides health care and research for children and teenagers who spend weeks, months and sometimes years in the hospital.
The care provided by staff is for the entire family, not just the patient.
Families as well as current and former patients join with the hospital’s Team Courage in the ride, sometimes with a parent and child on a tandem bike.
The team comes to mind whenever Kathy Coffey pedals up a daunting hill near her Colorado Springs neighborhood — her nemesis, as she described it.
“I think it’s the one thing that makes me climb that hill,” Coffey said, referring to Team Courage.
She and her husband, Robert, got acquainted with the hospital 26 years ago when their oldest child Alison became a patient at Children’s Colorado.
Frightened as Alison was admitted at 10 months old for cleft palate surgery and then again at 2 years old for spinal meningitis, the couple said the staff immediately instilled trust.
“I was just young and scared,” Kathy Coffey said. “I knew she was at a place where they knew what they were doing. They know families.”
Now, the Coffeys, including Alison, 26, Caleb, 23, and Steven, 16, are riding for the first time as a family.
Their history with the Courage Classic goes back to 2007, though, when Steven rode to receive his Boy Scouts cycling merit badge.
Among the 2,000 participants are many riders who have pushed through the odds, the family said.
A girl who rides an handcycle stands out in Alison Coffey’s memory.
“I always think about her,” she said.
To participate in the Courage Classic, adults must pledge to raise at least $300 and children must raise $125 by the end of August.
Click here to donate to the event, a team or a specific cyclist.
Barnes has raised just over $25,000 throughout the years and is a top 100 pledge raiser.
The Coffey family has raised $7,000 since 2007 and has noticed a widespread connection to the cause.
“In the course of talking about it and getting donations and so forth, everybody has a story about Children’s,” Robert Coffey said.
For both the Coffeys and Barnes, the ride, though strenuous, is a chance to reflect and reconnect to what is important.
“You think sometimes things are really bad and you go up there and see what families have lost and the disabilities people have. It puts it in perspective that your petty problems aren’t really bad,” Barnes said.
And when he and his wife have children of their own, the Courage Classic will likely be a family tradition.
“I’d love one of these years to hook a trailer to my bike and pull my kids along, and see them ride one day. Until I can’t ride, I want to be able to share that with others,” he said.
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